Amazon’s Fire TV Remote App can now instantly launch apps directly and more

The official Fire TV Remote app by Amazon is a handy way to control your Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. Whether you want to use the app’s voice function because you have a non-voice physical remote, or you want to use the app’s keyboard to input text quicker than the Fire TV’s onscreen keyboard permits, the Fire TV Remote app is great to have installed on all of your phones and tablets. The app has just received its most significant update since launch with a few handy new features. You can now launch your favorited Fire TV apps directly within the remote app, put the Fire TV to sleep, and sign into your Amazon account for easier discovery of your Fire TV devices.

In the upper right corner of the Fire TV Remote app, is a new icon to access your favorite apps. Tapping it brings up a list of all the apps you have favorited on your Fire TV. The list includes both official apps from the appstore and 3rd-party apps sideloaded onto the device. At the top of the list of your favorite apps are also icons to directly jump to the Music, Photos, and Settings sections of your Fire. There is also an icon to directly put your Fire TV to sleep, which is a nice touch.

If you don’t have any apps favorited on your Fire TV, that’s not a problem because you can do it directly from within the remote app. Pressing the plus button in the upper right corner of the favorites screen brings up a list of all the apps installed on your Fire TV. Select the apps you want to favorite and they will be favorited on your Fire TV and become accessible to launch from within the app.

The other new feature in the app is the ability to sign into your Amazon account in order to better find and connect to your Fire TV. I’m not exactly sure what kind of magic this feature is doing behind the scenes, but it absolutely works to improve Fire TV discovery. I have a subnetwork connected to my main network in my house, and I have Fire TVs connected to each network. I always had to switch my phone between networks in order for the Fire TV Remote app to find the different Fire TV devices. As you can see from the screenshots above, the Fire TV Remote app was able to find the Fire TV on the subnetwork after signing into my Amazon account, without me having to switch my phone to the subnetwork.

This new version of the Fire TV Remote app carries version number 1.0.11. As of right now, it appears that the Google Play version of the app is the only one that has been updated so far, but I’m sure the iTunes version and Amazon Appstore version will receive the update soon as well. Huge thanks to Keith for letting me know about this update. I can’t always keep track of changes like this on my own, so I really appreciate those of you who contact me about newsworthy changes.

32 comments

I’m happy to see Amazon bringing some new features to the remote app. Personally I only use it if my original Fire TV Stick remote goes missing in the cushions. The feature that would get me to start using it would be private listening (like the new Roku remote app supports with the Roku stick).

Also it made me chuckle to see that Amazon’s app store version wasn’t the first to be updated, but I guess Google Play is where a majority of customers are downloading this.

Although this APP is from Amazon, curiously I have also noticed that the version of the APP available on the Amazon’s AppStore remains: 1.0.10.02 (updated October 27, 2015), instead of being the first place to be updated.

Can anyone actually confirm this will allow adding a 3rd party app to the favorites? On both my stick and firetv only officially installed apps show up to be favorited and none of my side loaded apps are shown.

Just like Mazen, I also updated app to latest version and cannot see the new + sign favorites and sleep shortcut menu features. I’m on older rooted 5.0.5 firetv 2 box, so maybe that’s the reason. The app looks identical before and after update. I tried logging out and back in on the app but same thing.

Hi Tony, sorry for confusion I also have 5.0.5 (537174420) on my fire stick. I did however disable updates via adb. Not sure if that makes a difference.
Either way no way to launch apps directly from the remote app.

[quote]##I’m not exactly sure what kind of magic this feature is doing behind the scenes, but it absolutely works to improve Fire TV discovery.##[\quote]
Like all modern day magic, based on illusion. Instead of using your local network, it seems to log in to your Amazon account, and pulls the list of registered devices. I have a Fire Stick at my in-laws, 35 miles away, and since the update of my Android remote, their device, which is registered to my account, shows up in the list of controllable devices. I can confirm tomorrow that the device that’s out of town can be controlled from my house.

Updated my app and now the app activates itself on my phone. In other words, when I close the app completely using ‘shut app’, within 5 minutes the app has self started again. Not pleased. Had to delete the app.